Information Bulletin, October 2000

Once again hospitals and vendors should be congratulated for another
successful year of data submissions. For data received through the
month of September approximately 98% of projected 1999 SPARCS data has
been posted to the SPARCS master files. Facilities identified with
possible data shortfalls are being contacted by SPARCS staff. We
anticipate publishing the 1999 Annual Report (ARS) with data submitted through
the month of October. The ARS publication will note those facilities with
a shortfall along with an explanation, which will also be posted on the
SPARCS public Web site.

There are facilities that currently have data shortfalls because their
original or corrected data has not been submitted to SPARCS. Should
you have any questions concerning the status of your 1999 data, please
do not hesitate to contact the SPARCS Administrative Unit. Just as a
reminder, the status of your inpatient and outpatient master file
submissions is available on our
Audit and Submission History Reports
page on our public Web site.

HIPAA News

As many of you already realize the final HIPAA transactions and code
rules were published in the Federal Register this August, which means
the implementation date is October 2002. The final rules for security,
privacy, employer identification number, and national provider
identification number are expected to be published before the end of
the year. Official HIPAA information is available on the administrative
simplification web site
http://aspe.hhs.gov/admnsimp/.

It is important to note that SPARCS is very committed to the system
changes necessary for HIPAA compliance. SPARCS will follow the same
two-year time line as required of payers and providers. During the next
year necessary documentation and testing schedules will be published on
the SPARCS Web site.

The purpose of recent changes to the SPARCS data requirements has been to
class them with the HIPAA transaction standards. That effort will continue
until the HIPAA mandates are implemented in 2002. A second preparatory
step, implemented this year, is the Internet Upload process, which provides
a secure communication link to transmit data electronically. We thank those
facilities that are currently taking advantage of this process and encourage
those who are not to contact the SPARCS Administrative Unit at
sparcs.submissions@health.ny.gov.

The next meeting of the Universal Data Set for Institutional Providers (UDS/IP)
Task Force will be Tuesday, October 31, 2000 at the new HANYS offices in
Rensselaer. The main agenda items will be associated with HIPAA implementation
in New York State. Please contact the SPARCS Administrative Unit at
sparcs.submissions@health.ny.gov for more
details on the upcoming meeting.

SPARCS Changes

Changes to the ICD-9-CM reference file took effect October 1, 2000. Any new
diagnosis or procedure codes must be reported for all discharges after that date.

The SPARCS5 PC application has been modified and the new 5.07 version is
available on our
Software/Documentation Download Web page.
Included in the changes in the 5.07 release are updates to the facility list,
further clarification on potentially confusing warning messages, and
modification of the Inpatient Accommodations screen. The latter change was
in response to user questions associated with the transition to UB-92
accommodation codes from the old SPARCS accommodation codes. Specifics of
the changes in the 5.07 version of SPARCS5 are available in the Release Notes
which will be downloaded along with the software.

Web Site News

We appreciate the very positive response we continue to receive about the
content and design of the SPARCS Public Web site. In an effort to better
serve our growing audience, we have begun a staged implementation to make
all pages accessible to people
with disabilities in accordance with the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The
Audit and Submission History Reports have already been converted. As
always we encourage comments as we strive to meet the needs of all current
and potential users of the SPARCS system.